What Is the Kontakt 5 Pack?

The Native Instruments Kontakt 5 Pack is our top of the range pack on offer for this kit. It is designed exclusively to work in the full version of Kontakt 5 (not Kontakt player) and comes with the Drumdrops Kontakt instrument. The instrument provides the user with absolute control over each of the mics with the inbuilt mixer. It allows you to add reverbs that have been sampled from a variety of the studios and outboard we use. To increase the realism of the overall sound we have included multiple round robin samples and included a randomisation tool. On each channel there is a 4 band equalizer a transient master and the stereo buss comes with its own buss compressor making this a great production tool. It comes with a selection of MIDI maps including full compatability with Roland V-drums and the DTX900. In this release we have also added a MIDI Groove Player and Step Sequencer. This pack is perfect for Producers, Engineers, Drummers, songwriters and musicians who want the highest level of realism and the features that Kontakt allows us to support.

The Mixer Section

The Drumdrops Kontakt mixer gives you total control over the individual drums and percussion. Each drum is on a fader along with the overhead mics and room mics giving you total control of the levels of the kit. Each channel can be solo'd, muted, phase reversed or panned and there are two post fader aux sends per channel to use with the included convolution reverbs. All of the channels can be routed back to your DAW on seperate outputs (where supported). The Master fader has LED bar graphs. This is seriously a nice mixer.

The Equalizer

All of the Drumdrops instrument channels come with the standard Kontakt Equaliser which has a 4-band EQ and switchable fixed-bell curves on the low and high end bands. The midrange comes with adjustable Q settings.

The Transient Master

Each instrument channel also comes with the Kontakt Transient Master. This is a fantastic tool for changing the attack on the drums or reducing the resonance to stop those ringing drums. It is a great effect for bringing drums forward in the mix.

The Master Fader Effects

The master fader comes with its own bus compressor and tape saturator. The Bus compressor is a powerful compressor that can drive your drums without upsetting the detail of the sound. The tape saturator does exactly what you think it will do adding a pleasing warmth to the sound simulating the harmonic compression of analog tape. This really helps warm up the mix.

The Convolution Reverbs

We have included convolution reverbs of four studios - The Ironworks, Sofa Sound, The Square and the now closed Garden Studios in London where the kit was recorded. We have also included convolutions of some of our favourite reverbs found in the studios we use. Included convolution reverbs are - an EMT 262 Plate, AKG BX-20 Spring Reverb, EMT 240 Plate, Fairchild 659A Spring. A Grampian 636 Spring, an Orban 106C Spring and the Fisher K-10 Space Expander Spring. These wonderful old units will enhance the overall sound of the kit even further.

Randomisation

For added realism on top of the round robin samples that have been added you can also manipulate subtle parts of the sound to make the drums sound really life like. We have included around 7100 samples to reduce this risk but the randomisations make it even harder to tell that there is not a real drummer in your studio. You can vary the tuning, velocity, timing and EQ and also dictate how much each control can be varied.

Custom Velocity Curves

You can change the velocity curve of each drum. This gives you the ability to change the dynamics of each drum further. We have put in some fixed curves that you can use or you can draw your own curve to experiment further. The curves will work drum by drum or you can choose to select them across all the drums.

Mic Blend

New for this kit is our Mic Blend page. Here you can control the mix between the microphones on each channel. You can vary the amount of the close microphone with the overheads and room microphones. This gives you even more flexibility to change the sound of each drum. On the kick drum on this kit you can also change the mix of the sub kick microphone with the standard close microphone. Even each cymbal can have the balance of the overhead and room microphones changed.

So if you want to cut the snare and kick completely out of the overheads and rooms but keep them on the Toms and cymbals you can. This is a great new feature which will help you change the sound of the kit over and over again.

Mix Presets

The Mapex Heavy Rock Kit comes with a number of mix presets included. A number of engineers have saved their own mixes of the kit which you can access by using 'load preset'. This is a great starting point if you want to quickly and easily get a different sounding kit and tweak it. You can save your own mixes using the 'Save Preset' button. Why not save your own mixes and email us the preset? If we like what we hear we may add your preset to the kit.

Lite Version

Included in the pack is a full version of the kit accessing all of the 7119 samples and a handy lite version. The lite version has all of the features of the full version but does not load the round robin samples. This is perfect for loading up on Laptops where your RAM and speed may be more restricted. Use the Lite version for speed and the full version for quality.

MIDI Mapping

As well as the mixer section you will find a performance section with menus to change between drum articulations and a MIDI mapping function. There is also a learn function included allowing you to customize the MIDI setup to your own needs. Within this section it is possible to select whatever MIDI map best suits your needs whether that be General MIDI or a V-Drum map. We have worked really hard at the e-drum compatibility and for the Roland V-Drums and Yamaha DTX-900 this kit works perfectly. The Roland and Yamaha maps contain MIDI controller data for the hi-hats and in the case of the Rolands, for the snares to work. This may mean that you experience some unusual behavior with regards to the hi-hats if you choose to use these maps with any MIDI files that have not been recorded with an E-Kit. At the moment we’re only supporting Roland models TD-12, TD-20 and TD-30 but you’ll probably find that either of our E-Drum maps will work with most E-Drums on the market. Should you need to move any articulations you can use the learn function.

V-Drum Compatability

Our Kontakt packs work perfectly with various models of Roland V-Drum Kits and also with the Yamaha DTX-900 Electronic Drum System. The upshot of all this hard work is that anybody who owns these V-Kit models, can just load up the MIDI map for that kit in the settings page of our Kontakt pack, and start to play immediately.

Our hi-hats have been recorded with six articulations each for the center and the edge of the hi-hat, which will trigger seamlessly as the hi-hat pedal is opened and closed. The foot pedal articulations will also play back as the pedal is shut, using just your foot. If you own a Roland V-Kit that supports cymbal choking, our interface is also set up to support cymbal chokes via MIDI.

The kits are set up to trigger exactly as you would expect in every way, but in the event that you would like to move an articulation to a different note or drum, you can also easily use our learn function to move that articulation. Please note that your V-Kit will only work fully with our Roland or Yamaha maps as only those maps accept the controller data necessary to open and close the hi-hats. The Roland map also accepts another type of controller data that selects different articulations with regard to the snare to comply with the TD-30, but this won’t affect other V-Drum models in any way. The Roland models that we have tested are the TD-12, TD-20 and TD-30. We also support the Yamaha DTX-900.

Groove Player

Another new feature for this kit is the MIDI Groove player. There are 458 Heavy Rock loops in total that are included in the Groove Player that are taken from 20 different grooves played by Jason Bowld and cover three different time signatures and a range of tempos. Double click a file from within the Groove player and press the play button to audition loops. The groove player can work in either stand-alone mode or can be synced to your DAW. Your selected loop can be exported directly from the “Selected Groove” box onto a track of your DAW to be used immediately in your current session.

Step Sequencer

Another new feature that is provided with the Mapex Rock Kit is the step sequencer. The sequencer has eight channels allowing any eight of the articulations of the Mapex Kit to be selected and played. The sequencer contains 32 steps for each channel and clicking on a certain step in the sequencer window allows you to draw in a trigger. You can adjust the velocity of the trigger and adjust how often it will trigger. There is also a move function which will move the sequence randomly back or forth and a groove delay feature that allows you to delay each of the 32 steps in you sequence. Combining all of these features together means that the sequencer becomes much more than a straight forward sequence player but really allows the user to create moving, fluid, ever-changing drum patterns quite effortlessly. The Sequencer can be played in stand-alone mode or synced to your DAW and your patterns can be saved and reloaded at a later stage. This is a great step sequencer.

Groove Slicer

The Groove Slicer is a new feature for the MIDI Player in this Kontakt Pack. The Groove Slicer cuts each MIDI groove into thirty-two sections. These sections can then be played back in a different order to the original depending on what which of the three modes are selected. The modes are:

Pattern Sequence – Use this mode to Load and playback the MIDI Slice Patterns from the MIDI Slice patterns folder.

Key Sequence – The 32 slices are now also triggered from your MIDI keyboard so that when the loop is played back, it can be restarted from any point by pressing a key. Playing note C2 triggers the first slice and then the rest of the slices follow consecutive keys up the keyboard.

Key Trigger – In this mode the 32 slices are mapped to different keys on your keyboard, again starting at note C2, allowing you to play back the Groove using your keyboard rather than the playback button.

There are a number of MIDI Slice Patterns that you can load in the Groove Slicer section of the interface. Once you’ve pressed the Load button just choose a Slice pattern from the MIDI Slice Patterns folder that comes supplied with your kit. Play back the Groove Slicer to hear the Groove in its new form. In this way you can quickly try out new ideas for different grooves.

Minimum Requirements

We currently build our packs with version 5.2.0

Native Instruments Kontakt 5 - Minimum 5.2.0 full version. Please note the Kontakt 5 Free Player will only run the software for 15 minutes). You need the full version of Kontakt 5 to run our kits. (We are looking at releasing kit packs compatible with the Kontakt player in the future.

Midi Mapping

As well as the mixer section you will find a performance section with menus to change between drum articulations and a MIDI mapping function. There is also a learn function included allowing you to customize the MIDI setup to your own needs. Within this section it is possible to select whatever MIDI map best suits your needs whether that be General MIDI or a V-Drum map for compatability with Roland Kits.